


Those Little Things

by A_Lily_In_The_Moonlight



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Pureblood Politics, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 04:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8273453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Lily_In_The_Moonlight/pseuds/A_Lily_In_The_Moonlight
Summary: You know how, years after, when people tell their story, they recall all of the clues that prove it was “meant to be”? It's like a string of coincidences that only make sense in retrospect.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and (constructive) criticism are super welcome! English isn't my first language so it's likely I've made a few mistakes. Don't hesitate to point them out, I'll correct them asap.
> 
> Thank you for your time and enjoy!

                You keep saying you noticed me first. I beg to differ. You knew who I was, because everybody in the castle knew who my sisters and I were. That’s not to say you noticed me.

                I noticed you first. I don’t know when, exactly. In fact, I only noticed that I had noticed you when you disappeared. Something in the background of my everyday life had gone missing – it took me a bit to realise it was a person. I was caught by surprise when we didn’t cross paths as I left the Astronomy Tower and headed to my Charms class. When my eyes wandered in the Great Hall and your seat at the Ravenclaw table was empty. When I entered the library on Sunday afternoons to finish my homework and you weren’t in that tiny unlit corner behind the Runes shelves.

                You noticed me when you came back, because I hadn’t expected you to ever come back and couldn’t take my eyes off of you, drinking in the sight of you, alive. I became a bit of a stalker, I guess. I can’t imagine what you thought I was doing. I never thought to ask.

                You heard about me, then. How I had changed, imperceptibly for those of my caste, but in a big way for those of yours.

                You see, when you went missing, I realised all these things I had unconsciously memorised about you. The way you looked, of course, this brown hair swept across your head, your tired eyes that still held fierceness and pride when you forgot to conceal it, your slightly bigger size in a castle full of skinny teenage boys. But it was more about the way you acted. How you grazed the walls in the corridors and never left your group. How your gaze would drop when those of my caste came near. How you would try and make yourself small, insignificant, an element of the background.

                When you went missing, I noticed the others. Those with the same behaviours. And how there was also a spark in their eye, a spring in their step, a strand of hair that stuck up in the back of their head, a dimple in their cheek, chapped lips from the cold.

                Your people, they noticed I noticed. They were afraid, at first, but after I walked slower so that a loner would get to their dormitory safely, the rumour mill mashed those fears. They didn’t seek me out, exactly, and I didn’t help them overtly, but in the months between your disappearance and your reappearance, imperceptibly, I crossed the line from my side to yours.

                Then there was this night, this stormy night where clouds rolled around in the sky like waves crashing on the shore and lightning struck the Forbidden Forest and started a red-hot fire that even the drapes of rain couldn’t extinguish, and I was on my patrol with Tiberius Flounce who had a panic attack after the thunder made the tower tremble. You always thank Tiberius for having a fear of earthquakes, when we get to that part, because without him we wouldn’t have met, in the dark of the Nursery. You wouldn’t have thanked me for diverting my sister’s attention when your friend had passed us. She was already cruel, at this point. It was already hard for me to be around her.

                So you thanked me. I asked why you’d left the school. You were silent. I asked if I could touch you. You said yes, and I brushed your wrist. I looked at my fingertips and they were not smudged with mud. I said “my whole life is a lie”, and you said “my brothers were killed.”

                Your Muggle brothers.

                I didn’t have a brother, but I had a cousin, who was not as covert as I was in his defence of Muggleborns. My fingers on your wrist in the Nursery weren't enough to tip the scale, but the thought of him without fortune or family was. I couldn’t help my sisters, and that is still a gaping wound in my chest, but I could help him.

                And you could help me. Your family could hide me. They could teach me the ways of the Muggle world. I could help keep them safe from ill-intentioned wizards.

                Love will come slowly. It will come through our countless fights over domestic chores that I have been raised to let others do, and from the dangerous tasks you have been raised to not let women do. It will come from kneeling before your elderly mother when she needs help putting her shoes on. It will come from those cold nights and long litanies of spells that will keep the house safe. It will come from those books in your childhood bedroom that I will compare to wizarding masterpieces you never heard about, and from the stories I will tell in front of the fireplace, creating characters out of thin air and animating them to illustrate the old tales of my world.

                Today is just the start, of course. But when we’re old and grey and tell our story, I will only recall how we laid down in the grass of the fairy circle. I will recall how I renounced my name, family and fortune, and gave you my first kiss.

                And this, Ted Tonks, will be how our story ends.

**Author's Note:**

> This one-shot came from a prompt given to me by the lovely @gredandforgewazlib. The prompt was "First kiss" and, as you can see, I didn't really stick to it... but it inspired me enough to write what I think is a good story anyway. So thank you for the inspiration, pumpkin!


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